From My Kitchen.

I made this pavlova for an Australia Day barbecue we went to. The recipe called for six egg whites. Eggs are a bit scarce in our kitchen at the moment - we believe we have a snake or something similar stealing the eggs from our chicken coop. Even the eggs that our clucky silkie bantam was sitting on have disappeared.


With this in mind, I wasn't keen to use the whites of six eggs and dispose of the yolks. So I decided to try my hand at mayonnaise. I haven't made it before, and it was a project I had been intending on attempting for months, but have felt slightly daunted by (possibly because there is a bit of a Masterchef connection to homemade mayonnaise in my mind!)

I used Julie Goodwin's recipe, which I will post below. My mayonnaise is very yellow, but my backyard hens lay eggs with the most beautiful rich yellow yolks, so this was to be expected. The recipe called for extra light olive oil (this efers to the colour of the oil, not its fat content) but I only had regular extra virgin olive oil. I believe the taste of the mayonnaise would be improved with extra light oil, but, having said that, I quite enjoy the batch I have made!

Julie Goodwin's Mayonnaise

 (I doubled this recipe)

3 egg yolks

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 cup extra light olive oil

salt and ground white pepper, to taste

up to 2 tablespoons lemon juice

I added some fresh crushed garlic

Place the egg yolks and vinegar into a food processor and switch it on.

Add the olive oil a few drops at a time. When the mixture begins to thicken, add the oil in a steady flow until it is all incorporated.

Season with salt and pepper, and add lemon juice (and garlic) to your taste. 

Keep in the fridge for up to a week.

Fresh Baked Bread

Nothing beats the taste of fresh, hot, wholemeal grain bread straight out of the oven, smothered in homemade apricot jam. We usually bake our bread in the breadmaker, but this week I received three antique bread tins that I had bought off ebay, and I swear the bread tasted better when cooked in one of these!

Don't forget if you want to win a set of Onya Weigh Reusable Fruit and Veg Bags from Divine Harvest, you need to leave a comment on the previous post before 6pm tonight.

Cooking With The Kids

 

Miya and Eden both had one of those rare three hour sleeps today, doing wonders for every one's moods. When Miya woke up (even she was surprised at finding out she had, actually, fallen asleep!) the first thing she asked for was whether we could make some biscuits together.
I recently bought a fantastic cookbook called "Additive Free Kids' Parties" by Tegan Benfell and Rachel Davies Burrows. It is full of fun recipes for treats that don't contain any harmful additives. As Miya reacts badly to additives, this is becoming a well-used cookbook in our house.
We chose to adapt a recipe from the book and made Wholemeal Vanilla Biscuits (with 'faces' on). The girls helped scoop, measure, mix, pour and spoon (oh! the learning that happens naturally!) and decorate their biscuits with sultanas and almonds.

The results were impressive, and I caught the girls on numerous occasions sneaking out the back door having stolen one or two from the cooling rack... with only 1/2 cup raw sugar for the whole batch, I feigned shock and horror while revelling in the joy of watching my children enjoy a food journey from beginning to delicious end.

Wholemeal Vanilla Biscuits 
(adapted from 'Additive Free Kids' Parties' Vanilla Cream Biscuits recipe)

2 cups wholemeal plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 tsp natural vanilla essence
2 eggs
4 tsp milk (more if needed)
Sultanas and/or nuts to decorate


Preheat oven to 160 degrees and line or grease baking tray
Place all ingredients into mixing bowl and mix. Tip mixture out onto floured workbench and knead until all ingredients are well combined - adjust consistency with flour and/or milk
Roll dough out with a rolling pin until it is approximately 3mm thick
 Use a circle cookie cutter to cut biscuits. Place them on baking tray and decorate with sultanas and/or nuts.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until edges brown
Cool on wire rack

Loquat and Lemon Jam

Loquat and Lemon Jam

1kg loquats (stones removed)

2/3 cup water

1kg white sugar

juice and rind of two lemons

Add loquats and water to large pan and simmer until soft.

Mash or blend until desired consistency is reached.

Add lemon juice and rind and sugar, dissolve sugar into loquats.

Bring to full rolling boil and boil and set is reached on a cold saucer.

Pour into sterilised jars and seal.

When Life Gifts You Apricots....

Today a good friend of mine gave me a bag of apricots from her mum's tree.
I took the opportunity to try my hand at apricot jam. I've only ever made tried making jam once before, with mulberries. As jam, it was a disaster.... as mulberry toffee, it was delicious!

Since then I have purchased a preserving pan, one of my best op shop finds! It is a very very old cast iron and enamel one and I just love it.

I used a recipe from Thane Prince's "Jams and Chutneys: Preserving the Harvest".

Ingredients:
1 kg just ripe apricots
freshly squeezed juice of three lemons
1kg of white granulated sugar
125g liquid pectin (optional)

1. Cut apricots into quarters and remove the stones. Put the fruit, 400ml of water and lemon juice in a preserving pan and bring mixture to the boil. Simmer over a low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes until the fruit is very soft.
2. Add the sugar, allowing it to dissolve into the fruit. Try not to stir the mixture too much, as this will break up the apricots - you want to retain some large chunks to give the jam texture.
3. Increase the heat and bring the mixture to a full rolling boil. Boil for 4-5 minutes, then stir in the pectin and boil for a further 2 minutes. If making the jam without pectin, it will need to be cooked at a full rolling boil for 15 minutes: this will produce a softish jam.
4. Remove from heat and test for a set.
5. When the jam has reached setting point, pot it into hot sterilized jars, seal and label.

It will keep us going for a while, and it is lovely and 'zing-y'.

Responsible Renting.....

One of the things that has been rolling around my head over the last couple of days is.... if I don't have my own house to make changes to in order to live more responsibly, then how can I make the most out of this lifestyle? How can I reduce my impact on the environment when I am restricted by my surroundings?

This was a really big factor in my disappointment about losing the house. I had so many plans and dreams, and it seems so difficult to implement some of them when we are living in a rental. We can't install solar panels, for example, or ceiling fans, and a water tank seemed out of reach too.

We are limited in the type of chicken run we can build, which limits the amount of chickens we can keep, which in turn limits the amount of eggs we can use to barter with. We already trade one dozen eggs every two weeks in exchange for another household's food scraps to upkeep them, as half our food scraps go to the chickens and ducks, and half go to the Bokashi composting system.

Yesterday, I had a hypnotherapy session. I came out of it with much more clarity and peace than I have felt in such a long time, and with an awareness that I was only limited by my own imagination. A significant proportion of Australian families rent, and sustainable living should not only be for the 'rich' or for homeowners. There has to be changes that every Australian family can make, regardless of their living situation.

So I got to thinking. I can still have a water tank... I can have an unplumbed one that services the garden, the chickens and provides drinking water.
I can still have fruit trees. I can buy dwarf versions and plant them in large pots.
I can still build a chicken coop... the materials for it can be shifted when we move house. (At the moment, our chickens and ducks are free range during the day and are closed into a smallish moveable coop at night to protect them from foxes... the coop is too small to keep them in all day.)
I can still live frugally, reduce my usage of energy and water, reduce my landfill garbage (this week, our half size wheelie bin was only one quarter full!!). I can still make sure I am living each day more responsibly than the last.

Some of our range of water collection containers and our Bokashi bucket

Our rudimentary vegie patch; carrots, lettuce, onions, peas, garlics, spinach, capsicum and cucumbers currently growing.

Our homemade chicken coop

Our duck family.... hours of entertainment and fantastic pest control

 Homemade tortillas... best I have ever tasted!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups wholemeal self raising flour

1 tsp salt

2 tbs vegetable oil

1 cup lukewarm milk

Sift flour into bowl. Combine milk with salt and oil, whisking briefly to combine.

Slowly mix the milk mixture into the flour to form a sticky dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly for a couple of minutes. Leave to rest for 10 minutes covered by a damp teatowel.

Divide the dough into 8 equal sized balls. Cover and rest for another 20 minutes.

Roll the balls out very thinly on floured surface. Fry one at a time in a very hot pan sprayed lightly with oil. Turn after 20 seconds and cook other side. Keep warm and covered until finished; serve immediately.

May also be wrapped and frozen after cooking for up to a month. Thaw and reheat in foil in oven. (Nath and also fridge the dough once it has been rested both times to cook the next day... this works just as well.)

These are really yummy cooked on the BBQ :)

A Different Kind Of Therapy

Cheese and Pineapple Pizza Rolls

This actually beats shopping! Homemade grainy pizza rolls with cheese and pineapple topping. A friend messaged me today to ask how I would make these, because who doesn't love dropping into the bakery for one of these? I had never thought to make my own, but loved the idea, so I gave it a go tonight.
Thanks, Amy, hope yours turn out too!

Ingredients:
3 cups multigrain bread mix
330ml water
1 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast
1 cup cheese
2 tomatoes
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
fresh pineapple, cut into pieces

• Add bread mix, yeast and water to breadmaker in the order suggested by your machine's manual
• Set to dough setting
• When complete, break into eight portions and shape into round flat rolls
• Blend tomatoes and worcestershire sauce into a paste
• Spread onto tops of rolls
• Sprinkle with fresh pineapple pieces and cheese
• Bake in oven at 180-200 degrees for 20-30 minutes or until cheese is golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.